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ABOUT MY FEDERAL SERVICE FOR MY COUNTRY (return to homepage)

ABOUT MY WORK ON DEEP SEA OIL LEAKS
*   At NETL’s High Pressure Water Tunnel *
* At the OHMSETT Facility inside Naval Weapons Station Earle *
*   At UC Berkeley with Professor Ömer Savaş and Dr. Eric “Aquaman” Ibarra *

ABOUT MY LARGE-SCALE EXPERIMENTS WITH JP5 JET FUEL
INSIDE NAVAL WEAPONS STATION EARLE
WITH AN ENGINEER FROM RUSSIAN CONTROLLED ESTONIA

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United States Navy War Ships being loaded with conventional and nuclear weapons
at the trident spear of Naval Weapons Station Earle

The main reason that the Deepwater Horizon oil leak continued for 87 days was the absence of a proven tool to measure the leak rate.   In 2013 I submitted a proposal to an open, public, competitive Call for Proposal by the DOI Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).   My proposal “ Development of a ROV Deployed Video Analysis Tool for Rapid Measurement of Submerged Oil/Gas Leaks ” would create that tool.   I would work with Professor Ömer Savaş of UC Berkeley in his Fluid Dynamics lab for small-scale testing; then at the  Berkeley Ship Research Tow Tank for medium-scale testing, and finally at the OHMSETT Facility inside Naval Weapons Station Earle   for full-scale testing.

DOI BSEE selected my proposal and gave me $728,000 in funding.   The NETL added about $1 million dollars in funding.

At the OHMSETT facility inside Naval Weapons Station Earle, the highest flow rate of JP5 jet fuel at NWS Earle was 28,000 barrels per day.  

That flow rate of jet fuel would keep fifteen fully loaded 747 jets

  flying 30,000 feet above the ground.

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Click the image below to watch video of JP5 jet fuel being injected into sea water at OHMSETT at a flow rate of 28,000 barrels per day

which is about half of the discharge rate of the Deepwater Horizon leak.
OHMSETT Facility  

For the experiments with JP5 Jet Fuel, I was the Principal Investigator leading a team of 15 engineers.   JP5 Jet Fuel is similar to kerosene. JP5 is not highly volatile. It burns slowly and at a very high temperature – a temperature high enough to melt steel beams.

In liquid form it is not explosive, but the vapors of JP5 will explode under the right conditions.   So we had to wait for a clear day with no chance of lightning.   NWS Earle has its own weather station.

On a clear day from Naval Weapons Station Earle, you can see Manhattan – without the World Trade Center buildings.   All 15 of us were silent, except when we absolutely needed to speak.  

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JP5 jet fuel exploding in the Word Trade Centers.   JP5 would later melt the steel beams of the WTC buildings causing them to fall into the ground.

We all knew that JP5 Jet Fuel is what melted the steel beams in World Trade Centers.   We all knew that the people jumping out of windows on the 100 th floor were knowingly jumping to their death to escape the intense heat of JP5 Jet Fuel.

ABOUT OUR FIRST TIME ENTERING
NAVAL WEAPONS STATION EARLE

The first time I arrived at NWS Earle, Dr. Igor Haljassma was with me.   He was born, raised and earned his first engineering degrees in Russian controlled Estonia. (His PhD is from the University of Pittsburgh).   Igor speaks Russian fluently.   We’d submitted our paperwork for background checks by the FBI a few weeks prior.   No problems.

When we arrived at the entrance to NWS Earle, Igor was on the phone with his wife loudly rambling on in Russian.  

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Dr. Igor Haljassma

The entrance to NWS Earle is a large building you drive into then you are stopped by Naval Guards in body armor with sidearms and short automatic rifles across their chests.   They check your ID and paperwork, then send you to a room with no windows while they search your car.

I’d forgotten to inform them that I would arrive with an engineer who was born, raised and educated in Russia controlled Estonia.   I’d also forgotten to mention that we’d arrive in a van packed full of scientific camera equipment. I’d forgotten to list the scientific camera equipment on the ACCESS REQUEST FORM

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When the Navy Guards saw the scientific camera equipment, the normally serious look on their faces became dead serious.   They took me into a room with no windows and with polygraph equipment on the table.  

They ordered me not to point my cameras at the rail cars traveling down the trident spear to load warships.   They informed me that my camera equipment could be confiscated at any time, and they did not know if it would be returned to me.   I had high-speed camera equipment with me that could read a license plate from a mile away.   The high-speed cameras cost $1.5 million dollars.

They informed me that I could be ordered to answer questions asked by an FBI polygraph examiner.   I would not be told why.   I would not know the results.   If could be jailed in the base brig at any time and I would not be told why until a Navy JAG was available to talk with me.   They told me that could be a few days.

I was hoping they would have an FBI polygraph examiner question me under oath so I could tell everyone about it!  


ABOUT MY WORK ON DEEP SEA OIL LEAKS
*   At NETL’s High Pressure Water Tunnel *
* At the OHMSETT Facility inside Naval Weapons Station Earle *
*   At UC Berkeley with Professor Ömer Savaş and Dr. Eric “Aquaman” Ibarra *

ABOUT MY FEDERAL SERVICE FOR MY COUNTRY (return to homepage)